Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Latter-day Saint
Travel and Religion
A Full Life

A Full Life

Last updated on: June 25, 2024 at 5:09 pm by Dan Peterson

0 Comments

A Full Life 2024-06-25T17:09:49-06:00 Dan Peterson

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Thomas F. Rogers
(Image borrowed from the website of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship. I hope that they won’t object.)

Come, lay his books and papers by, he shall not need them more; the ink shall dry upon his pen, so softly close the door. His tired head, with locks of white, and like the winter’s sun, hath lain to peaceful rest tonight,—The teacher’s work is done.

His work is done; no care tonight his tranquil rest shall break; sweet dreams, and with the morning light, on other shores he’ll wake. His noble thoughts; his wise appeal, his works that battles won;—But God doth know the loss we feel,—the teacher’s work is done.

We feel it, while we miss the hand that made us brave to bear; perchance in that near-touching land his work did wait him there. Perchance, when death its change hath wrought, and this brief race is run, his voice again shall teach, who thought the teacher’s work was done.

My wife and I learned yesterday that our longtime friend Thomas F. Rogers has died. I believe that he passed away yesterday morning; his wife, Merriam, had already died in September 2022. They are the parents of seven children.

Tom earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Utah, a master’s degree in Slavic languages and literatures from Yale University (combined with studies at the Yale School of Drama), and a doctorate in Russian language and literature from Georgetown University, as well as a certificate in the teaching of Russian from Moscow State University and a certificate from the Theatre Workshop at the University of Wroclaw in Poland. He also took time to study Sanskrit for a while in India and Arabic in Syria.

Before joining the faculty at Brigham Young University to teach Russian and Russian literature, Tom taught at Howard University in Washington, D.C. and at the University of Utah. After his retirement, he spent a year in Beijing as part of the BYU China Teachers Program.

Having served a full-time mission to Germany as a young man, he presided later in life over the Russia St. Petersburg Mission (1993–1996), and then served as a temple missionary and sealer at the Stockholm Sweden Temple (2004–2005) and as an ordinance worker and sealer in the Bountiful Utah Temple. For several years after 2007, he functioned as a traveling patriarch, giving blessings to Saints in the Europe East Area.

Importantly, too, Tom was a prolific author, a significant figure in the development of a distinctively Latter-day Saint literature . (In 2002, the Association of Mormon Letters gave him its Lifetime Service Award.) He wrote several books, including ‘Superfluous Men’ and the Post-Stalin ‘Thaw’ (1972), God’s Fools: Four Plays (1983), Myth and Symbol in Soviet Fiction (1992), Huebener and Other Plays (1992), A Call to Russia: Glimpses of Missionary Life (1999), and a 2017 collection of essays in the Maxwell Institute’s Living Faith series, Let Your Hearts and Minds Expand: Reflections on Faith, Reason, Charity, and Beauty. He even translated Panchev’s Random Functions and Turbulence from Russian into English.

He was passionate about theater and drama, not only directing and acting himself but authoring such plays as The Second Priest, The Gentle Barbarian, Frére Lawrence, Charades, Fire in the Bones (probably the first literary treatment of the Mountain Meadows Massacre), and First Trump. He has adapted many books into plays, including Judgment Day (from Flannery O’Connor), Crime and Punishment (from Fyodor Dostoyevsky), and Intruder in the Dust (from William Faulkner). He also apparently created a version of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull that I have not seen.

He did not shy away from the thoughtful consideration of difficult subjects. Quite the contrary. Almost certainly, his most famous single work has been his 1979 play Huebener, based on the difficult true story of a young German Latter-day Saint who was executed by the Nazis at the age of seventeen for his vocal opposition to the Hitler regime.

In recent years, Tom had begun to devote his strong creative and artistic inclinations to painting, even hosting an exhibit in Bountiful, Utah, that we attended.

Tom was the director of the Honors Program at Brigham Young University during the time that I spent there after my mission, and that’s when we first became friends. (He was very encouraging to me.) My wife’s first close involvement with him was even earlier than mine. In 1972, her first year as a student at BYU, she was the assistant director (to Charles Whitman) of a production of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya in which Tom Rogers played the title role. Later, she directed a student production at BYU of an adaptation of Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find” that Tom had created. Our first date was to a fireside at Tom and Merriam’s home in Provo.

Tom and Merriam were longtime members of the small monthly reading group to which we’ve belonged for almost four decades now — which is officially and affectionately known as the Gadianton Polysophical Marching and Chowder Society. He could sometimes be very passionate in those discussions, too. And, as a matter of fact, he was scheduled to lead the discussion this coming Sunday evening. My wife and I were far and away the youngest members of the group when we were invited to join and, in recent years, the relentless onward rolling of time has begun to cut significantly into our numbers. Tom is the latest of a lengthening group of valued and insightful friends — e.g., Hal Moore, Davis Bitton, Cherry Bushman Silver, Francine Bennion, Todd Britsch, John Sorenson, George Bennion, and several others — to whom we’ve been obliged to bid farewell.

Finally, here’s the link to a relatively brief essay that he wrote at my request for my Mormon Scholars Testify website — now Latter-day Saint Scholars Testify — back in 2009: “Hooks.” I think that, even if you never knew him, it will give you at least some sense of Tom Rogers.

Thou shalt live together in love, insomuch that thou shalt weep for the loss of them that die, and more especially for those that have not hope of a glorious resurrection.

And it shall come to pass that those that die in me shall not taste of death, for it shall be sweet unto them. (Doctrine and Covenants 42:45-46)

We are confident that Tom and Merriam and others that they have known and loved are now enjoying a sweet reunion in a place where pain and illness are no more.

Travel and Religion

History and Religion

Russia St. Petersburg Mission

Thomas F. Rogers

Tom Rogers

Previous Post

June 24, 2024

Did I do any good in the world in those days?

Next Post

June 26, 2024 Something Wicked This Way Comes

Recent Comments

0 | Leave a Comment

"DP: “But Mr. Sutherland worries about the fact that our time, when we can communicate ..."

Theodore Brandley

Learning more about a region of ..."

"Another class of memories are of individuals who previously lived. Some of these remembered individuals ..."

PlasmaMiasma

Accounts of Premortality?

"Sutherland's lecture sounds interesting. He seems to restate the Washington consensus that trade brings peace ..."

B. Wilson

Learning more about a region of ..."

"In a meeting today, I learned another important reason why accurate (or at least as ..."

the PROBLEM

From Serbia’s “White City,” Belgrade

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 March 2014 August 2013 February 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

According to James, what is pure and undefiled religion?

Select your answer to see how you score.

To love your neighbor as yourself To care for orphans and widows in their distress and keep oneself from being polluted by the world To obey all the commandments To pray without ceasing